Sprinting all out for as long as you can

Sprinting all out for as long as possible will last about 40 seconds. For some that's a 350 for others it might be a 200. After that you're going to noticeably slow down or drop to the floor flooded with acidity.

Coach wrote:

Sprinting all out for as long as possible will last about 40 seconds. For some that's a 350 for others it might be a 200. After that you're going to noticeably slow down or drop to the floor flooded with acidity.

I disagree. I think sprinting all-out (and I mean all-out) lasts no longer than about 60m.

You're right, I'm wrong

easy weeks wrote:

Coach wrote:

Sprinting all out for as long as possible will last about 40 seconds. For some that's a 350 for others it might be a 200. After that you're going to noticeably slow down or drop to the floor flooded with acidity.

I disagree. I think sprinting all-out (and I mean all-out) lasts no longer than about 60m.

I think it just depends on how you define "sprinting." If you're talking about running at your personal fastest possible pace, yeah, most people will max out at 60m, gradually slow down for a bit, and then really tail off after 40 seconds or so.

I think what the OP means, though, is just running at a 100% effort. So if you ran a 60m sprint as fast as you could, but then just kept on running, eventually you'd get to a point where you still felt like you were fully exerting yourself, but you'd be running way slower. So maybe you'd eventually get to the point where you were still "sprinting" in that you were running as fast as you possibly could, but you might only actually be running 6 or 7 minute mile pace. My guess (and it really is a complete guess) is that you might be able to make it 400m or so. You'd really start to hurt somewhere between 200m and 300m, and you'd probably be moving at a pretty slow pace from 300m to 400m, then you probably just wouldn't be able to take another step somewhere right around 400m.

300-400 wrote:

I think what the OP means, though, is just running at a 100% effort.

I see, so he meant 100% effort, even though you would be slowing down at 60m or so, but continuing the "flat out" feeling as you slowed down. I do get it, now. My apologies. A more interesting question, now that I get it, lol.

My revised answer would be I guess theoretically you could do it until you were almost walking in a comical attempt to still run. If you were being chased by a knife-wielding mob of people running after you at a brisk pace, you'd probably get your answer.

Although not really the same, this reminds me a bit of a novella called The Long Walk by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman). It's an awesome story.

Only one way to find out, OP. I think (I know from experience of being a young, dumb "sprinter") that an all-out effort is going to have you in serious pain at 200, then you'll do an all-out death march for about another 180 before you're down to a jog or a hobble by about 400. Again, I know this from running VERY poorly paced 200's and 400's as a young kid.

I still think rigor mortis will hit you about 40 seconds in and you'll be crawling or stumbling like a punch drunk fighter

Coach wrote:

You're right, I'm wrong

Turns out it was the other way around, Coach.

easy weeks wrote:

My revised answer would be I guess theoretically you could do it until you were almost walking in a comical attempt to still run.

I'm just picturing showing up at the local track for a workout and walking in on some guy at the tail end of his attempt. Dude is barely even walking and his knees are buckling, but he has the determined facial expression of a man in full sprint. Eventually, he just topples over into the grass and remains there in a fetal position for the next few hours.

Yeah, this would be a pretty entertaining thing to watch. Even more so if you could recruit a large group to all make the attempt at the same time.

I felt like this one time I went out in 26 for an 800 when I was only a 2:08 800m runner. But even then I was actively holding myself back in the middle because I knew I'd made a terrible mistake.

I've often pondered this myself. Just going as hard as you can for as long as you can. At what point could you literally physically go no further. It's tempting to try and experiment with myself but that's the underlying fear of how bad this would hurt.

2 minutes. A 100% effort should be anaerobic and you've got ATP-CP and anaerobic electrolysis which will last about 2 minutes. After that you will need to stop or go aerobic.

* autocorrect, sorry - anaerobic "glycolosis" is the word

I did something similar to this back in the '90s during a fartlek run at night. At some point, I did an all out sprint (as fast as no-speed guy like me can go anyway) to the next light pole and was expecting to need to ease up the effort fairly quickly. But at the light pole, I still felt amazing for some reason, so I kept going all out. I kept thinking I was going to rig, but I kept feeling great, so I kept it up for many, many more light poles than I the one or two I expected originally when I started the hard effort. I have no idea really how fast I was going, or how long I kept it up.

Knowing I was feeling amazing, later in the run, when I went by some known mile marks, I ran a 2 mile effort around 9:30 doing the same thing.

Back when Gerry Lindgren was posting about sprinting and then keeping going during race, that fartlek effort a long time ago came back to mind.

So those all out efforts started out as a sprint and smoothly morphed into a 2 mile effort without a noticeable transition in my mind.

zzzz wrote:

So those all out efforts started out as a sprint and smoothly morphed into a 2 mile effort without a noticeable transition in my mind.

Then it wasn't truly 'all out'. Running at night can make paces feel faster than they are.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

zzzz wrote:

So those all out efforts started out as a sprint and smoothly morphed into a 2 mile effort without a noticeable transition in my mind.

Then it wasn't truly 'all out'. Running at night can make paces feel faster than they are.

That's why I qualified it as "in my mind". The first effort that I mentioned between light poles, I probably couldn't have sped up again at any point, so that was all out. During the 2 mile effort, I probably could have picked the pace back up once I had slowed from the start if you said sprint to the next light pole or something.

I'd say that running at night can makes faster paces feel easier, though what you say about making paces feel faster than they are can be true too. I felt amazing that night - going hard didn't hurt, so that wasn't the limiting factor.

It's an interesting question.

I raced a 400 a few years ago, and my strategy (it was the first one I ever raced) was to go out pretty hard (90-95% all-out), ease up on the back stretch a little, and then go 100% on the home straight.

I followed that, and boy did it hurt. I felt like I was in sand that last 100 meters, and I'm sure I was going much slower than the first 100 meters.

I wonder what would have happened if I had just gone all-out from the gun?

as an ex-400 guy, my coach always had us run 385y, because apparently it was the max threshold that you could do it given sub-50 400m speed.

it sucked.

but to answer your question, it's less about distance and more about time. in peak condition, you're probably looking at around 40 seconds. for some fat dude who is out of shape, he's looking at 10.